42 Degrees

It's very cold here today, so I broke my no-furnace streak and turned on the heat.

Hope it doesn't melt my snowman :D

Lots to Talk About

I have lots of things going on with my stitching - but it would be a really pic-heavy post if I wrote about all of it today. So I'll spread it out, but I did want to post something on the first day of October :D

I chose Rapture. I've been working on filling in the top row of 10x10 squares - it's almost all confetti - and adding stitches to the second row if I happen to have that thread in my needle.



The strategy is working. Well, a little. I have goals for October, and one of them is to finish off the top two rows of this page. Little goals are easier to meet XD

The Juliet dress is continuing on very well. The Goth Chick tried it on a few days ago, when we were both at our parents' house and I needed to see if the waist was long enough for her. She immediately pulled the shoulders down too far, but says she prefers it that way when I offered to tighten it a bit by adding another row or two. It looks good on her.



Do you guys like her dreads? They're not 100% years-to-grow real, but it takes her hours and hours and hours upon hours to do this to her hair.



She cut them all off yesterday! It was a little bit shocking to see her with shoulder-length hair. She said she was cold without them - I think she was wearing two shirts and a jacket.

I'll finish off this post with a bit more stitching - my experiment with green fabric for a stocking ornament.



So far, so good.

September TUSAL

The Juliet Dress

It's almost the end of September.

I'm not sure how that happened.

Or when that happened...

It is getting disturbingly close to the holidays, so I'm having to reconsider my projects, as much as I'd like to keep going the way I am (only sped up a bit).

This is the first WIP-present I've hauled out. It was too hot to work on over the summer, but since the weather has cooled down, it's doable again.

This is the Juliet Dress.



My sister wants this dress badly. Only with modifications.

Since I usually call her Goth Chick on here (she says she reads this blog, but since she has yet to howl about that, I'm not so sure) the first modification should be no surprise.

The dress is black.

The second modification is that it has to be a lot longer. She wants it floor-length.

Since she's almost six feet tall, that's a lot of dress! But it'll make a great prezzie.

The third mod will be the drawstring - I have to find some pretty, slightly-stretchy cording or something that won't tear up the yarn. She doesn't want a yarn drawstring and neither do I . They're kind of ugly in real life and have no elasticity at all.

Here's it's beginnings - the worst is actually over. The rest is just pattern rounds, with only a few increases as I go. The sleeves are gorgeous when she's tried it on - it's a vintage pattern, so since she knows she's getting it, we've been trying it for size as we go along to make sure the old measurements work. Excuse the wee loop at the end of that one sleeve; I haven't woven the ends in yet.


The sleeves need a wee bit of blocking to smooth their lines properly but there's no use doing that until I'm done, since they get twisted around constantly while I'm stitching.

If this one works out well, I'm going to pick up some more vintage dress patterns to make for her.

Now, I just have to decide what to make her husband. I doubt if he wants any more hats!

IHSW with finishes!

Here's the results of my small amount of stitching time this weekend!

I dusted off a Crazy January start - Bent Creek's 'Mom' - and took it on vacation with me. I got this far:


And then finished it up during IHSW (please pardon the hoop marks)



I love the colors and my mum will flip. I stitched the matching 'Dad' back in... huh, 2004? So she's been waiting on her's for awhile! I plan to have it professionally framed to match Da's, and then give it to her on her birthday in October.

I also finished up the second ornament kit:



So yay! Two more off the ever-growing, never-shrinking list!

Two of Four

I'm back from my little trip, so here's my little progress!



I did all the light red on the eagle - two shades of red left to go. I did all this on 9-11, which made me happy.

Last year, I stitched a bunch of wee one-dollar Christmas ornament kits. While going through my stash to sort out things for WIPocalypse (which if you haven't joined, you should, 'cause it sounds like major fun) I found two little kits flat against the back of a drawer. So I took both of them with me and finished one:



The other one I almost finished but I ran out of a color, which surprised me because despite the cheapness of these kits, that had never happened before. Then, this morning as we left, I found the extra strand of that color under the coffee table. I only had about ten-fifteen stitches of that color left to do, so I'll finish it up before I start my IHSW stitching (also something you should join if you haven't. Lots of fun!)

Speaking of IHSW, I will probably work on my boat, which I took with me but didn't stitch on. XD I worked on something else which I don't have a pic of yet, because it's still packed in my luggage.

More pics later!

Sailing On

I dunno if you can see it too well, because it could really use its backstitching,



but my boat's sails are almost done.

I was going to wait until they were completely done before I posted a pic, but I'm gonna be gone a few days so I won't be posting.

I haven't decided if I'll take the boat or Rapture with me - I only really want to take two projects but I already have two... so it's gonna be three. I know, I know - stitching ADD.

I actually have Sunday off (wooooot!) and I have seen a few American stitcher's blogs posting about working on something patriotic for 9-11's anniversary. So I remembered something and went stash diving.


My father bought me this kit around the one year anniversary of 9-11, and at that time I would always open a new kit and do a few stitches so that it couldn't be returned (long story). Anyway, here's what was done


(ooo, amazing!)

I'm going to work on it this Sunday and see how much more I can get. I'd like to give it to Da someday, so it may go on my finish list for 2012.